“Emperor Michael approaching,” I called out to the campsite as I approached. It was very early, before dawn and still dark. I used Acid Shot to one side as confirmation of my identity and the soldiers saluted. Captain Francis, got up from where he had been resting, as I sat down at the table on the only chair. A lantern was set on it to light up the campsite.

There were a lot of looks at my bloody shoulder and arm. One of the soldiers brought over bandages and began cleaning my arm of blood and then wrapping it. “Anything I should be worried about Emperor Michael?” Captain Francis asked me quietly so as to not disturb the resting soldiers as my arm was seen to.

“Level 5 zones are impossible. The monster I faced even more so. It left curse damage,” I replied. Captain Francis frowned at that.

“Curse damage? I am not entirely familiar with that. My apologies Emperor,” he said.

“No, it is fine. Curse damage is not widely known. Consider it a state secret for now, but you can share it with my protection detail.” Captain Francis nodded at that and I continued. “Everyone has a physical body and a body made of energy.”

“How does, sorry for interrupting,” Captain Francis cut himself off and apologized.

“I don’t know how or why it works. Consider it a new branch of physics involving energy. Anyways, as I was saying. People have a physical body and an energy body. Most of the time, damage you receive is physical. You lose an arm, hand, or get cut that is physical.”

“Over time that damage reflects onto your energy. Like two sides of a coin. If one side begins to deform, it will impact the other side. Normally people get restorations quickly enough before this becomes an issue. From what I know, ten days is the time frame before the effects start settling in and a thousand days by the time the effects become permanent.” Captain Francis nodded at that.

“This is how restorations work at the store. It fills in and adjusts your physical body based on your energy. This is fine for low level damage where everything is physical for the most part as far as I understand. But the level 5 monster I faced, directly caused curse damage, which reflected both in my energy and my physical body,” I explained.

“Curse damage is any damage done to your energy that makes you, you. Fixing it isn’t simple or easy. It takes a lot of time and focus to adjust your own energy,” I replied.

“That room you call a box, you are dealing with curse damage then Emperor,” Captain Francis said, and I nodded at this.

“Yes. I have been making progress. But curse damage lingers. The best way to explain this concept, is a percentage-based reduction over time. Slowly chipping away at it. The most dangerous part of curse damage, which hasn’t been fully confirmed, is that too much will cause a person to lose access to the store,” I replied.

“That would be very bad. Thank you for explaining Emperor Michael,” Captain Francis said.

“It is no problem. In time, I hope we are able to work out anti-curse defenses and methods of healing. Being the Emperor isn’t all fun and games. Poking new monsters is stressful. But hopefully we can map out level four monsters in time to target the easier ones for grinding. Then do the same for level 5 monsters,” I replied.

“We will do our best to support you Emperor Michael,” Captain Francis said.

“You don’t have to use my title and name all the time when we aren’t in public Francis. You can call me Michael,” I replied.

“Thank you, Michael,” he said.

“I am done. It is all wrapped up, and cleaned off. We have a spare shirt,” the soldier wrapping my arm said.

“Please, that would be nice.” I finished pulling off my current ruined shirt and put on a fresh one that was handed to me. One of the many benefits of traveling with a protection detail. That was when two cooked burgers were brought out.

Honestly it was quite ridiculous in my mind how well I was living out in the wilderness. I thanked the chef and chowed down. Old me would have been appalled, current me appreciated the small comfort after dealing with that Bloody Eye. My left arm was stiff and damaged, but it wasn’t a big deal. A restoration would fix it right up.

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After finishing my meal, the table was cleared. Captain Francis was nice enough not to talk to me while I was eating. While it hadn’t been the case in the past or when I was dining in a building. I liked to focus on eating or focus on talking out here in the wilderness. To appreciate the good food and then focus on what was being discussed.

Unlike with Clarissa, I took my conversations with Captain Francis seriously but in a different way. There were a lot of little things that Clarissa and I talked about where she informed me of stuff or got my opinion. I considered her my equal, even if I was nominally above her in the overall hierarchy our relationship wasn’t like that.

She had covered so many things, that a lot of them had drifted out of my head. I just didn’t care enough to remember all the details. They were important details, but there was a reason I left the day to day ruling to Clarissa.

With Captain Francis, he was my line of defense and clearly my subordinate at the end of the day. While we could have a more casual relationship, and I trusted him, there was too big of a power and authority gap. The same kind of reason why you don’t hang out with your boss after work. I wish I knew how Presidents handled this sort of thing or celebrities.

I had decided to be clear with my instructions, while trying not to give too many. Also, to share information that wasn’t a state secret. I was happy to talk about curse damage but sharing the terrain of level 5 zones wasn’t in the cards. If anyone brought it up, or it was mentioned then I wanted to be able to track down where that knowledge came from.

Also, there was no need for Captain Francis to know. His combat level was nowhere close enough to even consider a level 5 zone, let alone a level 4 zone in any serious capacity.

“We can depart once it is daylight. Make our way back South and see how the road is doing and General Abdullah’s preparations to take the two cities to the West,” I told Captain Francis.

“I will make the preparations to depart. Any ideas what you plan to do after that?” he asked me.

“Most likely return to Purgatory and upgrade the city to level 5. With the city shield on and support from the wall, I can win easily.” The main reason to rush the upgrade was the tenth stat, Channeling. That way people could use active enchantments and tests could be started with that stat.

“As for after that, probably a break to resolve the curse damage, and then going about for skills. Probably after the celebration on day 1,000. I should have most of the curse damage sorted by then.” By that time Clarissa should also have a list of available skills from all level 1 and level 2 dungeons. I wanted to consider all my options in depth first and possible combat applications before picking what my build would be.

My protection detail would have to wait a bit. Skill distribution was a contentious topic. But as Emperor I had the final say. Once every ten times was the planned distribution for taking skills from dungeons. The Imperial Government would get four out of ten times, with Clarissa picking her people or special grinding teams. The remainder would be auctioned off with the proceeds being split with the city in control of the zone based on the tax rate.

If a dungeon was improperly cleared, it would fall on the city to give up one of their slots and repeated failures would have them penalized. That is where cities doing well and grinding more zones really started to add to their coffers.

The race to get teams out in the field who could clear level 3 monsters was huge. There were no limits on dungeons in level 3 zones, which meant that the leading teams getting skill points from them would have an advantage.

All of this meant, was that I would do an upgrade round, and then one of my protection detail would do something similar every hundred days. They would need to put together skill lists and that would take time. There was no immediate rush in my mind.

I knew what worked for me and what I wanted. But the soldiers could use a bit more tempering against level 3 monsters to get a better understanding of what worked for them and the skills they wanted. Preferably lots of melee fighters and meat shields to sacrifice. Unfortunately, direct combatants like the Divine Empress who could fight monsters head on were a rarity. No one wanted to get up close and personal with monsters.

It wasn’t something that could easily be trained. You needed to have that reckless confidence in yourself and being able to commit to attacks.

“Halt! Identify yourselves,” I heard a soldier say at the perimeter. Looking over, I saw a horde of cloaked figures approaching.

“AMBUSH!” I yelled out and moved. The chair I was sitting on toppled over as I shot to my feet and kicked off the ground. The knife monsters from the darklands. They had crossed half a level 3 zone to get to here.

Acid Shot x10. My attack didn’t do anything to them. Force Wave. The annihilation reaction did some damage, but not much. The cloaked skeletons kept approaching. The monsters kept approaching. I looked at them through my energy sense, and my energy was just running off them. “A sword! Pack up the camp!” I called out.

Briefly turning around, I caught one that was tossed to me. I didn’t carry one anymore, since I didn’t think they were useful. There shouldn’t be a problem killing anything with Acid Shot, or an annihilation attack if that didn’t work.

“Radiant Beam!” Three soldiers used the skill at the same time. Several of the monsters were hit and set on fire or blown apart.

“Attack from the flanks! Team A, B left. Team C, D, right. Team E support!” Captain Francis yelled out. The soldiers quickly moved as the monsters focused on me. I struck at one with a sword, but it only did a bit of damage and bounced off, the metal deforming slightly.

My danger sense spiked and the nearest cloaked skeleton moved incredibly fast. Air Burst. I barely avoided being hit with the knife. “Keep your distance!” I shouted as I skidded to a stop on the ground. The soldiers kept unleashing attacks, and they were working, but very slowly.